I was in paradise. A sunny, bright as ever, afternoon, a gold streamy-day, when three words ripped a banshee straight from my chest and shot it into the air. Begging someone to listen. Three words that made my entire self explode into white hot fiery rage. Three words that brought me staring at the face of heartbreak. “I’m so sorry”.

I feel as though everything I am and everything I’ve known has become totally disrupted. Last night, I kayaked among the stars and felt completely infinite and totally loved. My very best pal passed suddenly and the only place it’s brought me to is the water. A place where majesty always flows and love is in every star reflected, bouncing and beaming around the hearts that choose to exist with it.

My grandpa loved the sunshine. He loved places that held sunshine. His face seemed to magnet to sun’s beams, turned upwards, eyes closed, blissful smile. But maybe more importantly, he loved people that were sunshine. He called the sunshine out in people and declared it a promise and a testament. If I were to tell you a story about my grandpa it would plummet down a mountain just to float back to the top again, tumbing and building on itself until all the snow in the world created the most obscure and extraordinary mound that was my grandpa.

Most of you who know me even a little know how deeply I love my grandparents. “You have to meet my grandparents. They are literally the best.” And they are. So I’m going to stumbily and clumsily—grandpa style— present the most extraordinary man I ever knew.

There was a man who’s wingspan was as normal as any other man’s. It wasn’t significantly long or broad in any way but somehow it was the absolute biggest. Maybe it was because they were so well practiced at being open; shot into the air as though nothing more exciting and more wonderful had ever happened. Everything was golden because he saw you as golden. And as he aged, it was as though these big strong arms only extended with his time here and the people he met and loved. As though he somehow attached himself to every person he truly loved and expanded with them, shrinking when they shrunk and screaming when they celebrated. It’s strange how one person, one man, one grandpa who had the messiest arms could be a home to so many. And maybe the man realized that that was the point of life: to live it loud and in love. To be everyone’s arms. To dream like kids on Christmas. To dance just because you can. To become someone for everyone. Maybe, just maybe, he knew exactly what he was doing.

When I was little, I spent many hours at my grandparents house. Playing with play dough and eating mac and cheese with grandma or muching popcorn and fresca while watching the princess bride with grandpa. When I was small, my grandpa would take me out for random treats throughout the day, “because you’re special mads, and this is what special granddaughters get”. He made life a simple wonder, delivered in a poorly wrapped package with too much tape and not enough paper, excited, beaming boy on the other side. I would show up in a beautiful, wild outfit and twirl in the living room for grandpa, a smirk growing out of the left corner of his mouth. And as his arms shot into the air and his eyes shone, a great big “WOW” would burst from his grin. To grandpa Jim, color wasn’t just an option, it was a necessity. The wackier the patterns, the more confident he was. And believe me, grandpa could pull off anything. coolestshoesincalifornia.com (“don’t forget the .com”) was his favorite site and he wore the hell out of a good pair of oakleys (or oakeys as he called them). Dancing in the middle of a street on a summer night, making letters out of arms that seemed to stretch to either side of the lake around us.

It seems like the stories of my grandpa have grown to be the crows by my eyes and the fingerprints on my toes, falling from my lips like a song I’ve sung everyday. My brother called me a couple days after he passed, upset for not going to see him: “I should’ve been there”. But the thing that grandpa knew about love was that it’s not stagnant. He understood that when you loved someone and someone loved you back, it became part of the soles of your feet, the sparkle in your eyes, and the way your heart beats. Real love is a constant flow. It knows no limits and holds no reserves.

Grandpa had a knack for making you feel wanted. It was a rare occasion to see his arms at his sides. As my grandma says, he would’ve adopted all the grandkids as his own, but the ones he had, he made sure knew they were special. My grandpa taught me what it was to value yourself and demand extraordinaire from the people you loved because life needed more challenge and encouragement. It needed more people who would show up. Ones who not only saw the hurting ones but those who would sit with them.

When I ran my third marathon, I traveled on a ferry to a statue that stood higher than I could’ve imagined. Wearing the baggiest and rattiest of all sweatshirts, mustard and ice cream stains seemed to hold on with all they had against grandma Judy’s laundry skills, imagining these cozy, well-worn, loved stitches of fabric becoming a part of who I was. My grandpa gave them to me to make me feel loved and strong, he said: “When you just need my arms, my laugh, my strength, put these on”. I wore them on that brisk and sunny November morning through the streets of New York. I ran with them on for several miles, not wanting to shed any part of my grandpa and how he makes me feel. When I saw a man who couldn’t stand, the stains and the sweats became his.

“you’d look beautiful in a paper bag”. Loveliness was never questioned, and words never went unheard. No one was a forgotten presence and nothing stifled or slowed his love. For a while I would think to myself, dang, grandpa really is a pro at living well. He was incredibly well traveled, well educated, greatly motivated, wildly optimistic, and just good at living. I thought that maybe you had to have all of these pieces in order to live as well as grandpa Jim did. Then I had some birthdays and as the candles passed with my years I discovered that grandpa lived simply and messily. That his choice to live was based in a love that was so big that you needn’t ever go so far as to be outside of that love. Life decorated grandpa in the most festive, silly way. He lived for others and in living for others, he became the ultimate liver of life. Because to live that generously and that completely for every person you encountered, to choose to value, to choose to welcome, became the very essence of a man who thought salad with dressing on the side was healthier, orange was the color of champions, and to love was the greatest gift this life gives you.

Grandpa taught me how to make mistakes and be okay with them. He taught me how to make the biggest messes while creating something wonderful. He taught me the importance of holding no limits in an aisle of sweet syrups, and how to live loudly. The moments where my entire being felt toasty was when I would look over and see my grandpa looking at me with eyes that have been through storms and come back shining, pointing a finger at me, beaming and nodding. An embodiment of fierce love. I got twenty-five extraordinary years with the man that taught me how to be good, and not just good, but how to be absolutely extraordinary. To the man who was the most golden of them all.

When I think of a place that holds the purest and most gentle, accepting and understanding hearts, I think of a place that molds around everything my grandpa was. Generous, kind, loving, extraordinary. And that leads me down a path with kingdom shaped trees, the ones with branches and leaves that dip to tickle your nose. A path that carries feet on a golden glow from a sun that never burns and a rain that always cures. And at the very edge of this path is a river. A river with crystal waters and rainbow glowing fish. A river that flows to a great big tree. A river that holds and grows. Where everything and everyone run more wild and free.